Word: screenplay
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
High Noon combines its points about good citizenship with some excellent picturemaking. Carl (Champion) Foreman's screenplay is lean and muscular, and as noteworthy for its silences as for its sounds. And Fred (The Men) Zinnemann's direction wrings the last ounce of suspense from the scenario with a sure sense of timing and sharp, clean cutting. The picture builds from 10:40 a.m. to its high noon climax in a crescendo of ticking clocks, shots of the railroad tracks stretching long and level into the distant hills and of the hushed, deserted streets of Hadleyville. Throughout...
Actors and Sin (Sid Kuller; United Artists) is a two-part picture of mixed merits from one-man Moviemaker Ben Hecht, who produced, directed and wrote the screenplay. Hecht's eight-year-old daughter Jenny makes her screen debut in a leading role...
Unfortunately, the screenplay is not quite so chic. Red Skelton inherits a half interest in a Paris dress salon and stages a musical fashion show on the premises. Howard Keel sings and has romantic designs on Designer Kathryn Grayson; Ann Miller and Marge and Gower Champion do some fast stepping, and blonde Zsa Zsa Gabor just flounces around. When it is dressed up with songs and smart styles, Lovely to Look At has a champagne sparkle. At other times, it is as flat as dead soda...
Kangaroo actually concerns itself with some goings-on in the South Australian cattle country during an unseasonable drought. But the full screenplay is hopelessly complicated and extremely disjointed, involving among other things a long lost son, a gambling house murder, a stampede, a dust storm, and a bull whip fight. Under these circumstances, the only way to retain your peace of mind is to abandon all attempts at following the story and take each incident as it comes...
Loosely based on the real espionage cases of Soviet Agent Harry Gold and Britain's Atomic Scientist Klaus Fuchs, the picture develops its anti-Red theme in such simple blacks & whites that it becomes a rather obvious thriller. In Alfred Werker's plodding direction of a talky screenplay. Walk East on Beacon moves at a too-leisurely pace for an action picture. Lending a bit of credulity to the proceedings are actual backgrounds filmed in Washington, New Hampshire and Boston...